We started our day with brunch at 12pm at Tapaz Restaurant at Perdana Quay, Telaga Harbour. The scenery was very beautiful; there was the sun, the blue sky, the yachts floating around, and the brightly colored restaurants. As it was still kinda early for lunch, it was also very serene because there was hardly anyone else besides Gary and I. The whole Quay belonged to the two of us (and the waiters at the restaurants) for about 30 minutes before other tourists came for food.

At Tapaz Restaurant

I started off my brunch with a huge glass of sungria, probably equivalent to half a bottle of wine. The sangria had lots of fresh fruits and a good amount of alcohol inside so I think I got a little bit tipsy when I was only half way through the drink (but then again my alcohol tolerance is not exactly that great so maybe somebody else drinking the sangria would not have any tipsy effect).

We ordered the chicken liver pate and a tapaz platter for two. The chicken liver pate was smooth and went really well with the chewy home-made bread (it tasted quite homely to me at least). The size of the chicken pate must be one of the largest I’ve seen as well! It came in a souffle cup!

We really liked the whole atmosphere the restaurant presented as a whole. The colors of the restaurant decoration had that strong Spanish vibrant feel, the food was great, and the price was reasonable ( around RM100 for 2), would definitely come back here again. But I would come back in the night-time as it was really hot during our meal ! Now I know why there was not many people at lunch…

Our next stop was the Panorama Langkawi Skycab. As it was a public holiday, the line was so long we really didn’t want to spend so much time waiting. We tried waiting, but gave up after 30 minutes and went to the Underwater World. So make note in your plans to not go to the skycab during public holidays, or if you do, go early in the morning to avoid wasting too much time at the queue.

Underwater World was a must-go for Gary because he is a big fan of fisheys and I am not. There were a few different categories of animals – reptiles, marine, freshwater tropical forest, sub-antarctic and temperate.

I enjoyed the visit but I had shorter attention spans for some sections. When it came to the sub-antarctic and the temperate sections, I must say I enjoy watching the penguins more than anything else.

Rockhopper Penguin – I like his yellow eye brows. He looks mad in this picture…

Black Footed (African) Penguins.

As we exited the Underwater World, there was a duty – free shop right next to it. If you are pressed for time, you can do all your duty-free shopping here instead of going to Kuah Town. Chocolates, alcohol, Corelle and Corningware, etc.

During the night, we went to Kuah Town to do some pots and pans shopping for our up-coming new house. We looked around quite a few duty-free shops to compare prices. The prices are more or less similar between various shops so you don’t have to worry about maybe some shops might have higher prices than others. If you are a Corelle lover, you will go crazy here ! All sorts of designs with all sorts of shapes. Big plates, small plates, fish plates, bowls, soup bowls, tea cups…. etc etc. Other brands included Pyrex, Tefal, La Gourmet and Luminarc.

We ended up buying one Corelle set of bowls and plates, and one set of La Gourmet pots (set of 3 pots). The price was really good as it was about 40% off compared to other places in Malaysia. I havent opened the sets as I am waiting to shift them to the new house, but I did open up two plates for the sake of taking photos 🙂

I just can’t resist Corelle kitchenware I dont know why. The last time I was in Langkawi I didn’t d0 much except for work, I didn’t drink much as I was there for work, I didn’t go anywhere much except staying inside the hotel and went once to Kuah Town, I didn’t even buy too much chocolates as I was watching my diet, but what I did do was I hand-carried a set of three super heavy Corelle pots (S, M, L) all the way back home with me…

The last time I was in Langkawi was about 2 years ago, and that was purely for work and did not have the time to look around Langkawi too much.

We rented a car for 3 days, and just RM80 per day which was totally worth it. Although Langkawi is not that big, but the cab fares can be steep if you are travelling from your hotel to various destinations.

Our first stop, was at Sawadee Thai Restaurant, Jalan Pantai Tengah, Mukim Kedawang, 07000 Langkawi. I had high expectations as they had advertised themselves with authentic Thai chefs cooking the meals. The meals were good, but the taste seemed to have been adjusted to suit foreign tourists’ taste buds. The taste was milder, and less spicy then it should have been.

After lunch, there was a convenience store near by, and we bought lotz of booze! Not that I’m an alcoholic, but there were all sorts of booze around, like Pineapple Vodka, Mudshake Chocolate Vodka and the KGB Coffee Vodka!

We then checked into Sheraton Langkawi Beach Resort. The suite was spacious, very clean, well maintained and came with a huge balcony. The service was great too! All the staff greeted us with smiles all the time, from the front desk to the house-keeping ladies to the shuttle drivers. Whatever we asked for, things like bucket of ice and refill of shower gel came speedily as well. If there’s any thing that I have to pick on, it would probably just be the lighting in the rooms were on the dimmer side, and you can feel just a tiny bit of “age” in the room.

We had dinner at the hotel – usual buffet stuff, followed by trying out all the different drinks we bought during daytime.

The drinks were all pretty mild… the pineapple vodka was more like pineapple juice with a splash of vodka, the mudshake seriously tasted like chocolate milkshake, and the coffee vodka was like … well.. .coffee! But it was fun trying out all the drinks !

Mum bought a lot of scallions today and there was a lot of flour… hence the Korean Scallion Pancake !

Recipe for the pancake

Bunch of scallions – chopped.

2 cups of all purpose flour.

1 1/2 cup of water.

2 eggs.

5 squid balls – diced. (These squid balls are hand-carried all the way from Taiwan, but you can use alternatives such as crab-meat sticks or other types of sea food).

Pinch of salt.

Recipe for the dipping sauce

6 tbs black vinegar

3tsp light soya sauce

pinch of chilli powder

2tsp white sesame seeds

Method

1. Mix flour, water, eggs and salt together.

2. Normally the scallion in korean pancakes is not stir fried, but added to the batter as is. I modified a little bit such that I stir fried the scallions and the diced squid balls until lightly browned. I find stir-frying gives a better aroma to the pancake.

Mullet Roe is a delicacy in Taiwan. It is expensive and eaten on special on occasions or when there are guests over (or at least that’s the case in my family). Today, I cooked mullet roe, not that it’s a special occasion, not that there’s any special guests over in our house, but well, my mum reckons that the mullet roe is sitting in the fridge for too long and she’s afraid it’s going to become stale, so that’s the reason why I cooked Mullet Roe today.

Here is what it looks like

There is a thin sheath on the outside of the roe that needs to be removed and soaked in rice wine for about 10-20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 170c, put mullet roe together with a bit of rice wine into the oven for 4 minutes and turn over to the other side for another 4 minutes.

And tada ! Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside ! Normally it is eatin with white carrot or leak sliced sliced into equally thin slices as the fish roe. But today I dont have either, so will just have to make do with chopped garlic.